


branches

by hectorpriamides



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Low Fantasy, vague magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-06-27 21:32:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19798180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hectorpriamides/pseuds/hectorpriamides
Summary: like The Little Mermaid, i guess, but with dryads & ladies in uniform.





	1. Chapter 1

The sun hit her with more force than she expected. It shined through the grand foliage blocking the sky, broad green leaves matted in a canopy she had so often thought of yet rarely managed to touch. Her sisters did not appreciate her climbing their branches. 

Daphne sat up, grass tickling her bare thighs. Her skin held no tints of green, and the flowers that adorned her body fell to the ground, curling on themselves. She had been granted a body—the Red King’s war raged outside of her mother’s forest, where she stood protected, strong, lazy days with her various sisters trampling through the brush. 

Yet now she had a body. A body mimicking the humans that sought passage through the ancient vines. Mother never allowed human troops to venture deeper than the perimeter. The odd traveler could find water, but Mother would never be an instrument of war. Daphne knew this.

_She had a body_. Her. Out of all the dryads, Daphne has received one. Her heart (she had one!) sped up. 

The normally soft gazes of her kin seemed harder as she rose to her feet. Her heels were soft, bleeding as a rock cut into her, and she stared abstractly at the blood trickling onto the ground. She bled _red_. Humans did that. She lifted her foot, slim fingers wrapping around a slim bone, smearing the red across her skin. The arch of her foot, the cusp of her ankle, the spot where calf met foot. It was all there.

Daphne smiled. It ached.

“Mother?” she called. One of her sisters knocked her branch against her shoulder. The bark was tough. Never before had a tree injured her.

Her eyes scanned for _her_ tree, for herself, and that part of her stood. Tall, strong, leaves finding themselves just short of the grand canopy that protected all. White splattered her smooth trunk.

She lived as two.

The wind rustled through the glenn; her hair whipped past her cheeks. Brown hair, it seemed, a far cry from her former forest locks.

Mother did not speak—not anymore. Daphne had not been present when she did. She did not need to speak to communicate. Taking steps forward, she closed the grand distance between she and Mother, laying her hands (unbearably soft) on the towering oak’s trunk. Warmth ran beneath her fingers; almost intentionally, a leaf brushed her cheek, like a caress of a woman who could love her child.

Daphne had always heard the odd traveler speak. 

Magic, one final time, flooded the clearing. Her sisters stood taller, if for a moment. Human clothes wrapped around her body, a dress the red of blooming flowers covering her from neck to knee. The softness of her body evened out (Mother called them _finishing touches_ ).

Human assistance. The mention made her shudder.

“…I understand, Mother,” she said, as their conversation came to a close. Warmth was gone. She pressed a kiss to the cold bark, tongue catching the bits that stuck to her lips. “Your will be done.”


	2. Chapter 2

The brilliant blue sky was quickly washed away with rain. Fat droplets shattered on her cheeks and roll down the smooth planes of her back. Daphne did not know where she was, nor where humans were, so she sat back on the ground, letting the rain soak her fresh body.

Her plan was detailed yet vague. Obtain human assistance. Find out whatever she could on the Red King’s war. Return home one day. There was an expectation to interact with mortals, but she did not know the first thing of where they lived. Mortals passed through the wood; they did not live there. Mortals all spoke different tongues, too, and did Mother even give her the correct one?

Daphne did not understand why she was chosen, but no one questioned Mother. It was unwise. It was dangerous, and for all her daring, Daphne did not dare to cross that threshold.

She leaned back, hair sopping up the mud. Eyes shut to avoid run off, she allowed nature, the world, to rock its child to comfort. Knowing vaguely that humans were easily ill, unknowing of the precise limits, she avoided the sleep knocking at her eyelids.

She found refuge in the storm until her dress weighed her down and her bones shook. Cold was a new feeling; bumps appeared on her skin. Tracing them with her finger tips, she stood with a slight stumble, transfixed more on her flesh than her feet.

A delicate thing.

Lightning arched across the dark sky half an hour later. Attention caught, her eyes scanned the clouds, sucking on her lower lip. East. Was east a good direction? The east wind was warm; mortals relied on the sun. She held frigid hands up, peering through scabbed forefinger and thumb. East it was.


	3. Chapter 3

Amongst mud and puddles, Daphne’s eyes found a small rock outcropping. It was too organized, too planned, to be nature. The edges were smoothed, and wood sat between two pieces, small bits of metal crudely stuck on it. It was the height of a grown tree, a wooden fence starting from the back and trapping animals in the back. Laughter rang through openings in the stone. Her stomach rumbled as meat found her stomach.

Humans.

Daphne had tracked the days despite the clouds. Two days of walking, paired with rest, and the unfortunate finding that she could not freely eat from the wood as she had done before.

It took two days to find humans, but she knew of _cities_ and _towns_. There were more. They were in abundance.

She wiped her hands off on her soaked dress. It did little good, cold water running down her mud splattered legs. She did not mind it at all.

Humans waged the Red King’s war, all in search of his son, but humans also passed peacefully through the wood and sang their wonderful songs. Hopefully these would be the good kind.


	4. Chapter 4

Daphne’s first sight of humans was Saxilion’s Thirty-Second. Broad shouldered men with words of old honey, they were kind if brazen. Few women were scattered amongst the ranks, dressed in the same garb as the men, but they fawned over her with equal adoration. Nothing in her screamed run.

She seemed to be youngest, though she did not know her age. She was easily welcomed into the fort, had bread and water shoved upon her, and an older woman sitting her down. There was hushed conversation in the corner (something about a lieutenant, whatever that was) that did not concern her.

“We’ll get you a bath, girlie,” one of the men said. Donovan was his name. Sun colored hair set in messy curls that framed full lips, broad shoulders and back barely contained by his shirt, he made her feel like a fairy, small, delicate, easily quashed, but his hands were gentle and his heart good.

Daphne did not know what to do, per-say, so she smiled, nodded and _tried_ to not do all the things that made her sisters irritated; the last thing she needed was to make herself seem poorly to the humans. They held the answers to the war, the answer to Mother’s quest and a way home.

The woman who had been bustling over her—Penelope—sent humans running for water and clothes. “Where’re you from, girl?” she asked. Her voice was rough, and she rivaled Donovan in size. Calloused hands looking capable of choking out a bear, she held them in front of her, a posture she recognized as _non-threatening_.

“The wood,” she said. “I am the wood’s daughter.” A few tuts murmured through the hall.

Penelope’s aged brow furrowed. “Head injury,” she said to Donovan. “She’ll need the medic when they get back.” It must have sounded tall; Daphne did not care to refute. The fort was warm, her belly now full, and her eyes droopy once more. Anyone important would recognize her, anyone with magic singing in their veins.

There was no rush. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come talk to me on twitter, i guess 
> 
> @hectorpriamids

**Author's Note:**

> daph, again, is one of my favorite roleplay characters. i wanted to do more with her. this piece will probably be consistently updated, because there’s no planning, & i do best like that.
> 
> also this is me trying to work on descriptions.


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